babinro said:Poor pacing (grind).
This has gradually become my number one deal breaker in any game followed closely by poor controls.
What do I mean by poor pacing?
Just about anything that feels like it's actively exists to waste my time while adding little or nothing to the experience. The genres most infamous with this are MMO's and traditional RPG's.
- Does your game require me to fight through waves of monsters for 10-20 minutes to reach a quest location, have 5-20 minutes of fun and then backtrack 10-20 minutes through monsters again to cash this quest in? I'm done.
- Does your game use a mount system but then expands the maps so that your increase in speed is meaningless? I'm done.
- Does your game require a significant amount of returning to town and wading through load screens to do the same menial task over and over again? I'm done.
- Do I have to spend minutes sprawling through large towns to complete routine tasks like selling gear? I'm done.
- Do I have grind out monsters for levels in the same zone for hours in order to proceed forward? I'm done.
You'd think all of this would mean that I hate RPG's and yet that's far from the truth. I LOVE the genre...it's just bitter sweet. I frequently feel like I'm spending over 50% of my play time getting ready to have fun. Programmers need to learn to institute movie style CUTS in their game.
- Want to sell gear while in a dungeon?
CUT to shop, leave shop and CUT back to your place in the dungeon. There's ZERO reason to force backtracking on the player. Better yet, simply let us sell gear through inventory screen. It's implied that you sold it to a merchant...skip the loading screens altogether.
- Complete a quest? CUT to quest completion dialogue/scene the CUT back to your place in the world.
Why do I need to watch the character walk back to town/fast travel back to town then walk through the town to find the quest giver?
So on and so fourth.
I'd make the absolute greatest RPG game ever by the way.
It'd only be 10 hours long because of all the cuts but the experience would be amazing
It's funny you mention that because FF13 is both spot on and terrible. It's a great example of removing a lot of the tedious grind from the experience and focusing on the gameplay while pushing forward in the world. My ideal rpg would largely emulate that feel though without enforcing the strict corridors or removing freedom of exploration.Gundam GP01 said:As an RPG fan myself, I feel that most of your changes would ruin an RPG for me.
What you seem to be describing just seems to either be just one big ass dungeon with random dialogue breaks, or Final Fantasy XIII, but with random shitty cutscenes every 20 minutes that dont even advance the story.
One of my favorite aspects of RPGS, J and W alike, is the continuity of the world. I love it when a world feels like a single, coherent and complete whole. Even if it doesn't feel completely real, like in most JRPGs, it still feels like a believable whole.
Ideas like "Oh, just sell your shit in the inventory screen no matter where you are," and "Just have a short cutscene the moment you do whatever the quest tells you and teleport you right back to where you were standing afterwards" just completely rob the world of a sense of continuity and be believability.
Basically, I think the game you described isn't an RPG, it's a linear action game with RPG elements and combat.
Remember, my goal is strictly about reducing senseless backtracking/wasted time.
Perhaps the act of fast traveling to a town and then running to the same guild master for 15th time continues to enthrall you in Skyrim/Oblivion but I felt that got old REALLY quickly.
Maybe you found working with encumbrance and the decision to return to town mid-dungeon added to your RPG tactical experience. I personally felt it was a massive waste of time. In fact, buying the PC version and using the command console/mods to all but remove encumbrance improved the game experience tenfold for me without taking me out of the world. This is the kind of respect for the players free time that I'd want to infuse into a game.